


Either Or

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Series: Raven Cycle Writing Fills [15]
Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Call Down the Hawk Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Love Conquers All, M/M, Past Abuse, Tumblr Prompt, pynch - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:01:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25530256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: Adam starts thinking about the future after Harvard, and realizes he didn't account for something very important.There was something damning in the air that had nothing to do with candles or wandering souls.Change.“I fucked up,” Adam began.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Series: Raven Cycle Writing Fills [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1399438
Comments: 7
Kudos: 109





	Either Or

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my 200 follower giveaway, the prompt request was "Tears" with Pynch. It's typically in my nature to take a prompt like this and turn it into something happy, but I decided to try and capture a Pynch aspect I've been thinking about for a while. Shout out to my wife, as always, for being the wellspring of my inspiration. I hope you enjoy!

The third time Ronan barged in on Adam in the bath, Gansey squeezed in behind him, took him by the back of the neck and ushered him back out with an apologetic look thrown over his shoulder. As Adam sank down to his chin in the tub, he let out a sigh. In the stairwell, Gansey reassured Ronan Adam wasn’t stupid, and Ronan clearly knew this, judging from his tone alone.

Still, he protested, “We’re all stupid Gansey, this is just _his_ way.”

Adam supposed Ronan’s concern was justified, especially with the miniature towers of white candles practically melted into one another, sitting at the corner of the tub. They’d had enough time to burn that streams of wax slid over one another and down into the water near Adam’s feet. They were the only source of light in the room, and Adam himself sat in a giant bowl where he could easily lose himself in the flickering lights reflected on its surface.

In Ronan’s defense, it would be so easy to scry.

Instead, he tipped his head back to rest on the edge, first staring at the shadows dancing across the ceiling and then closing his eyes. He felt weightless in the water, and it wasn’t magic, but it was damn near close. The familiar sounds of home were dampened by the closed door and his deaf ear, but he knew them intimately. He could tell where Ronan was by the sound of his voice, knew which drawer he’d opened in the kitchen by the way the objects inside it rattled. The lower hum of Gansey’s voice made it so Adam could imagine precisely how he lingered in the doorway, keeping an eye on Ronan. Adam knew the shape and placement of the bathtub, the room, practically everything at the Barns had come to ingrain itself in his mind and heart as surely as the roots and limbs of Cabeswater had.

This keen sense of awareness had been his early warning system back at the trailer, part of his instincts on where to move, how to fall, which one of his parents was coming down the hall. Little by little, he’d been replacing those terrible details, until the creak of the third floorboard in the upstairs hall didn’t make him flinch, but instead ready his arms to be full of a Ronan coming to bed. Adam drew in a shaky breath, flexed his hands at his sides, stretched out his spine. The surface of the water touched his lower lip, his earlobes. He felt safe, he felt known, and all of that was part of the problem.

 _Where does he fit in, Adam? To your plans. To the life you_ _’re working so hard for._

The water closed in over his head.

-

Ronan slipped free of Gansey after another thirty minutes had passed.

“You follow me up here, and I’ll push you down the fuckin’ stairs.”

“I’ll not be to blame if he drowns you, Lynch.”

He pushed the door open with a surprising amount of care, not wanting to startle him. Adam was right where he’d left him, the candles still burning. Though he stared at the ceiling as if it held all the answers in the universe, he lacked the vacant stare indicating a scry. Ronan let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“You a prune yet?” he asked.

Adam’s voice sounded thick. “Probably.”

Ronan came further into the room, dragging over the little stool stored near the tub so he could sit close. Adam’s hair was damp, and so was his face.

“Crazy bastard,” he accused, having little current evidence, and a lot of supporting historical facts.

Adam turned his head so slowly, Ronan worried he might have actually scried, but so much of _Adam_ could barely be contained in his red-rimmed eyes. Ronan’s stomach did an uncomfortable twist, but he leaned on his thighs, putting himself closer. Something about the expression took Ronan back to the day he’d gotten banned from Harvard for dreaming murder crabs into Adam’s dorm room. There was something damning in the air that had nothing to do with candles or wandering souls.

Change.

“I fucked up,” Adam began.

Feeling his lungs turn to lead in his chest, Ronan huffed, “You’re gonna have to be a little more specific.”

Adam blinked, then blinked again before rolling his face back toward the ceiling. It wasn’t fast enough to hide the tear Ronan saw sliding past his ear and down his jaw. Easy to mistake for a drop from his wet hair, or as part of the sheen on his skin from the steam.

“Get it over with, Parrish.” Ronan reached out to catch the drop on his fingers before it could fall into the bathwater.

It seemed like he wouldn’t get an answer, the silence stretching out between them while the candles threw deceptive shadows across their faces. Ronan wanted to kick over the stool, knock the candles into the water. Drag Adam out of this eerie regret, the likes of which he hadn’t seen since the hot summer nights of St. Agnes. Months of learning how to navigate this strange sea with his magician kept his ass firmly planted on the stool, clenching and unclenching his fists because he had to do _something_.

Adam finally let out a stuttered breath, the water rippling around him. “I didn’t think about what happens after.”

“After what?” Ronan asked, carefully and painfully neutral. Inside, his nerves seared, his bones felt heavy.

“Harvard. You know, the job I was gonna get, the house I was gonna buy.” Adam started to sink down in the water again.

“Don’t,” slipped out of Ronan before he could stop it. Whether it was about the words or losing Adam to the water, even he couldn’t say.

Adam looked up at him again when his chin dipped below the surface. “It was all just supposed to happen when I got into an Ivy. And I was gonna live like Gansey, I was gonna be something, I was going to get as far away from here as I could.”

“You can have whatever you want, you know that.”

Ronan ached to know where this was going. How far he’d be left behind when it was over.

“No.” Adam sat up so suddenly that water sloshed over the sides of the tub, splattered Ronan’s jeans and bare feet. “I can’t look at the world like that. I’ve gotta know the rules, I’ve gotta know where to put my boundaries, Lynch. I just can’t shoot for the stars and end up on another planet. I don’t want to forget how to get back home again.” His eyes were wide, wild. There were wet tracks on both cheeks now.

Ronan swallowed around the lump in his throat. Whenever Adam said _home_ it sounded like his name, and he couldn’t quite fold himself into Adam’s frantic train of thought. “Just…tell me what you need, Parrish. I’ll do it.” He dared to reach out, cradle Adam’s face in his hands while his thumbs brushed the tears away. “I want to understand this.”

He blinked slowly, more tears fell. Ronan wondered if he was even aware he was crying.

“I was talking with one of my professors last quarter,” Adam said. “I laid out my degree plan, ‘cause you never know who’s got an internship or something. And, I don’t know, we started talking about you and the Barns and I realized I was thinking about all of this like walking between two worlds. Like Cabeswater and Henrietta all over again. Either or, magic or reality, one or the other.”

“And how’s that fucking up?” Ronan asked carefully, putting the notion that Adam talked about him to one of his teachers aside for later consideration.

“It can’t be an either or. It’s gotta be you _and_ my future. It’s easier to lose sight of that when I’m there, especially when I can’t feel the magic like I do here. Fuck.”

He leaned toward Ronan, and it was simple instinct that ensured Ronan’s chest was there to pillow Adam’s head against. A yawning part of Ronan, a depth in him filled with sharp teeth, thought Adam walked further away with every quarter almost constantly. He knew Adam’s schedules by heart, a ticking clock in his heart forever counting down when the next break would arrive. He may have resolved himself to a future where Adam lived the life he’d made and Ronan lived the life that had been made for him. In this moment, however, he dared to hope.

“It’s you and my future, Adam,” he murmured into his hair. “You are my future.”

“That’s not right,” Adam protested.

“Fuck that.”

Adam shifted to look up.

“Look, it ain’t worth it if you don’t make up your own rules to play by. That’s what makes us magicians, Parrish. You wanna have an Ivy and a dreamer, fuckin’ take them both. The world doesn’t just deserve to suck it up and deal, it fuckin’ _owes_ you. Go be whatever it is you’re gonna be, and come back when you’re done. It was never an either or. Not for me.”

Adam kissed him then, hard and full of intent. “I’ll make it work.”

“Obviously,” Ronan scoffed, and some of the tension let go of his ribs. “You worry too much about shit.”

“Fuck you,” Adam said pleasantly. He sounded as relieved as Ronan felt. “Hand me a towel.”

There’d be more to talk about, but for now, Ronan didn’t have to worry about him accidentally drowning himself, either mentally or physically.

“I should make you get it yourself.”

“But you won’t.”

Adam shifted to stand up, and sure enough, Ronan was ready with the towel to wrap him up. Adam bent to pull the plug out of the drain and blew out the candles. Inky darkness crept in on them, but Ronan’s arms were sure and steady around him. Once Adam was out of the tub, they kissed each other breathless.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I can be found at my [TRC blog](http://oldkingyounggod.tumblr.com) or my [spicy TRC blog](http://athoughtfulking.tumblr.com). Feel free to come say hello or make a request, if you like. Thank you for reading! <3


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